AREAS OF FOCUS
RSS FEEDS
Read the latest items from the InHealth information portal in your newsreader
InHealth Studies
- Northwestern University
Northwestern University One-year Research Study $191,231 Grant Awarded in 2008 According to the Institute of Medicine, as many as 6 million Americans suffer from obstructive sleep apnea, a severe sleep disorder that can lead to obesity, diabetes, stroke and depression and a profound economic impact on the health care system. Researchers John Linehan, Ph.D., professor of Medicine and Bioengineering at Northwestern University, and Jan Pietzsch, Ph.D., consulting assistant professor in Stanford University's Department of Management Science and Engineering, and President and CEO of Wing Tech Inc, will apply the one year, $191,231 grant to deliver new insights about the role of medical technology in diagnosing and treating obstructive sleep apnea. The team will explore efficacy, cost-effectiveness and access to diagnostic and therapeutic technology used to treat the disorder. Researchers will build a predictive model to assess the effects of improved diagnosis and treatment of the condition that can be used for future policy and technology development. - Medical College of Georgia
Medical College of Georgia Two-year Research Study $491,344 Grant Awarded in 2008 An estimated In light of the more than 20 million adults and children in the U.S. living with diabetes1, researchers at the Medical College of Georgia were awarded a $491,344, two-year grant to study the impact of insulin pumps on the social, cultural and economic aspects of patient and family life. Led by Max E. Stachura, M.D., director, Center for Telehealth, Medical College of Georgia School of Medicine, the research team will compare patients who use insulin pump therapy to patients using conventional intensive injection insulin therapy. Researchers expect to draw conclusions about ability to control glucose, patient life style, diabetes-induced disruption of patient relationships with family and co-workers, and patient and significant other satisfaction levels. [1] The American Diabetes Association - Stanford University - Program in Biodesign
One-year Research Study $290,000 Grant Awarded in 2006 The key objective of this study was to present a comprehensive description of the medical device development process that could help to inform the public and other interested constituencies about the specific nature of medical devices, the significant differences between devices and pharmaceuticals in general, and their development processes in particular. The study was motivated by the notion that future policy-making could benefit significantly from a detailed understanding of the way medical devices are invented, developed, tested, used and gradually improved. - Tufts University
Tufts University Two-year Research Study $400,000 Grant Awarded in 2008 Diagnostic testing continues to be one of the fastest growing fields in health care, driven in part by evidence that the technologies improve survival for patients by assisting in the diagnosis and treatment of diseases such as cancer and congestive heart failure. The value of diagnostic technology, however, is often poorly documented or understood. The nation’s escalating health care costs have prompted policy-makers to call for stronger clinical and economic evidence of improved patient outcomes and cost-effectiveness. Researchers at Tufts University, led by Peter J. Neumann, Sc.D, director of the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health, will apply the two-year, $400,000 grant to examine the method by which in-vitro diagnostic technology’s value is measured from several angles, which include exploring published cost-analyses and conducting a survey to gauge preferences for diagnostic testing. The study aims to be the most comprehensive analysis of cost-effectiveness to date. - Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University One-year Research Study $200,000 Grant Awarded in 2008 An estimated 28 million people in the U.S. have a hearing impairment and it is predicted that by 2025, about 60 million people over age 65 will be hearing impaired.1 To better address previously reported underutilization and poor compliance of hearing aid use, Johns Hopkins University was awarded a one-year grant of $200,000 to study the economic value of hearing aids and associated technologies. Led by John Bridges, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Health and Policy Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the research team will survey patients about their preferences to determine attributes about hearing aids that patients find most important. The team intends to demonstrate the significance of patient preference in evaluating hearing aids and estimate the potential economic impact of increased use on the health care system and society. [1] The American Diabetes Association - Harvard University/Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Two-year Research Study $430,000 Grant Awarded in 2005
Slightly more than four decades ago, John and Jacqueline Kennedy’s son Patrick was born just eight weeks prematurely. Despite the fact that he was cared for by the brightest minds in the country he was unable to survive the lung disease that resulted from his mild prematurity.
The ventilators, monitors, imaging technologies and other devices that are now a routine part of Neonatal Intensive Care existed only in the imagination of those who would transform the care of critically ill newborns. This project is designed to provide rigorous demonstrations of the impact of NICU device technologies at both the individual and societal levels. - University of Houston
University of Houston Two-year Research Study $398,000 Grant Awarded in 2008 Personalized medicine is increasingly being adopted into clinical practice, but there has been little research to understand how testing and the prescribing of drugs will be adopted by patients. A research team at the University of Houston was awarded a $398,000, two-year grant to analyze the willingness of patients from different socio-economic backgrounds to adopt and use genomic devices for tailoring drug-prescription, including the willingness to pay for novel genomic diagnostics. Dr. Amalia M. Issa, associate professor and director of the Program in Personalized Medicine at the University of Houston, will examine patient preferences when it comes to personalized medicine and the trade-offs that patients make in deciding whether to use pharmacogenomic testing, which identifies patients who are likely to have the most (or least) toxicity from a drug. The findings are expected to contribute to understanding of what technologies are used, how they are incorporated into medical practice, and which populations have access to and use them. - University of Pennsylvania
Three-year Research Study $900,000 Grant Awarded in 2005 We are investigating the value of implantable cardioverter-defibrillators (ICDs), drug-eluting coronary stents (DES), and carotid arterial stents using a two-phased approach: (1) a cost and outcomes analysis of nationwide Medicare data in which these technologies were used in routine clinical care, and (2) comprehensive quality-of-life surveys of device recipients in Penn’s health system to understand patients’ personal experiences with cardiovascular technology. - Duke University
Duke University
Three-year, three-phase research study $900,000 grant awarded in 2005
Although hundreds of clinical trials have established the effectiveness of medical technology in clinical outcomes, little is known about their effects on population health. Additionally, most clinical trial outcomes are highly specific (e.g., ejection fractions for cardiovascular interventions, range of motion for joint interventions). Our goal is to examine the effects of multiple medical devices on population health. Our study examines representative samples of the U.S. older population (primary recipients of medical devices). The outcomes include mortality, physical functioning and disability.
